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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30018921">ninety-one</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegeseage/pseuds/Daegeseage'>Daegeseage</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, Character Study, Dark, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), I haven't written fanfiction in years I'm so out of practice, I talk a lot about scars so beware!, Injury, Mentions of Exile, Pandora's Vault Prison, Scars, Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), everyone's a tragic character, i think, in fact I'm not sure if there's any, it's sad, just a little bit, kind of, revival, um</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:21:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,127</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30018921</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegeseage/pseuds/Daegeseage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy has ninety-one scars. Until he doesn't.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <br/>
    <em>They were little victories, symbols that despite all he's gone through, the struggles, the joy, the pain, the triumphs, the brightest and the darkest moments, he'd come out the other side. They were proof that he'd won against everything, everyone. Against Dream.</em>
    <br/>
  </p>
</blockquote>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>No Romantic Relationship(s), none at all - Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>62</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>ninety-one</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>TW: Scars (seriously it's what the fic is about), Implied Suicidal Thoughts, Injuries and stuff</p>
<p>This is based of a personal headcanon of mine that being revived using the revival book removes all evidence of injury from a person!</p>
<p>I've always thought there's a lot of meaning in scars, and this grew from what it might mean to have all that meaning suddenly removed.</p>
<p>Reminder: This is based off the characters the cc's play in the Dream SMP rp, not the cc's themselves!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Tommy had a lot of scars. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>None of them were particularly obvious, nothing like the huge burn scar that marred Tubbo’s face and upper body, but there </span>
  <em>
    <span>were </span>
  </em>
  <span>a lot of them. He used to sit down and count them, reading the story etched into his body.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It was a painful tale, punctuated by bittersweet and acid and burnt sugar.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There were the two big ones of course, the ones he’d lost a life to: the slice on his stomach from the final control room, and the star shaped one on his collarbone from the bow duel. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then there was the multitude of smaller ones built up from months of conflict and dumb mistakes and simply living. He had sometimes absentmindedly traced his finger down the one on his cheek, a memory from the original scuffle with Dream when his discs were first stolen. Dream had sheepishly apologised; he’d been kind, in a way then. There’d been no true malice in his actions, just someone who meddled more than he really needed to.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Well, that hadn’t lasted for long.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There were seven that covered his hands from the early days of L’Manburg, where he’d trained himself to fight under Wilbur’s careful supervision. Wilbur had helped him clean and bandage every little wound he got, all soothing touch and proud words.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Seemingly inevitably, that came to an end as well.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There were the messy scars on his knuckles from when he punched a wall in Pogtopia, just so </span>
  <em>
    <span>done</span>
  </em>
  <span> with fear and dread and uncertainty. This time he'd treated it himself, hiding his bandaged hand from the warrior and the madman who haunted the ravine, their bloodthirst seeping through the walls. He had one from the pit fight, a thin line on his shoulder where one of Techno's tusks had ripped through his skin.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He kept reapplying the bandages long after the wounds healed.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There were the tens of tiny burn scars that peppered his arms and legs, searing sparks from countless explosions. There was no way to keep track of where exactly each little mark came from, it all blurred into one in the end, but he counted them all the same. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There were too many explosions.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He'd stopped counting his scars in exile. It was too painful to watch the number increase almost daily. He learnt to ignore the criss-crossing stripes from the biting nudge of an axe, plunging the thoughts that screamed "wrong!" into the depths of his iced-over mind.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He forgot what his scars meant.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He didn't count them again until the night after Doomsday.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There was a new one that spread down his back, faint tendrils spreading outwards like grasping fingers. The memory of that burning flash had him shivering despite the warmth of his own bed, wrapped in the familiar blankets for the first time in months. There were others too, small mirrors of Tubbo's scar, inflicted by someone who'd once been… an associate? A companion?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Not a friend, according to his angry cries.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Tubbo helped him clean and stitch the new one on his forehead, cut by that same hungry axe held by a hungry being. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hopefully this'll be the last one for a while, buddy," his friend had joked awkwardly, voice cracking. Tommy had simply agreed with a hum and turned to bandage the wound on Tubbo's chest, scar upon scar.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Tommy had ninety-one scars. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It sounded a lot worse than it looked, to be fair. Most of them were tiny, centimetres across if even that. Some were pale, some were dark, some could hardly be told apart from skin, some were ropy and tugged when he flexed. Some twinged when he moved a certain way, some he forgot about unless he looked at them, some he couldn't remember where they came from, some woke him from sleep gasping for breath and twisting in phantom pain, dredged in crystal clear memories.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And Tommy treasured every single one.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They were little victories, symbols that despite all he's gone through, the struggles, the joy, the pain, the triumphs, the brightest and the darkest moments, he'd come out the other side. They were proof that he'd won against everything, everyone. Against Dream.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They were proof that his body could heal, that </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> could heal.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Tommy was surprised he didn't get one during the building of the hotel, but Sam watched over him and forced him to wear that obnoxious safety gear. He refused to admit how safe it made him feel, and he kept wearing it after the hotel was finished, something he hoped would be a beacon in the darkness that so often engulfed the server.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He nicked himself once or twice, but they healed without a trace.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He wondered what sort of injuries a nuke would inflict. Would it be just like a bad burn, or would it be something else, something vicious and fatal, radiation burrowing into his body like maggots on a corpse. It wasn't like he was ever going to experience it, so what was the point in imagining it, he told himself in the end, ignoring the slight shake in his hands as he realised how close he'd come to death.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He wanted to live with his scars, with the evidence of his life.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And then he didn't.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>When he breathed again, sucking in rattling breaths of dry hot air, he raised an unblemished hand to wipe the sweat from his face. The skin was smooth, uncalloused from the hilt of a tool, no longer decorated by burn flecks. His arms, his legs, his face, his chest his stomach his back-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The scars were gone, leaving Tommy clean and untouched.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They had been stolen, like so many things in Tommy's short life. His treasured discs, his armour, his weapons, his country, his friends, his (almost) family, his childhood, his innocence, all </span>
  <em>
    <span>three</span>
  </em>
  <span> of his lives-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dream had stolen them.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He'd taken nearly everything from Tommy, who knew he wasn't responsible for everything, but so many threads trailed back to his twitching fingers, buried in all corners of the server. Threads that tugged on the sleeves of Wilbur's coat as he pressed that damned button, circled Tubbo's throat as he said the words that sometimes haunted Tommy's nightmares, dragged Tommy downwards in an endless ocean of water and lava and dark dark thoughts.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He thought he'd severed those threads at the source.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But now he had nothing to show for it. He didn't even have anything to show from the revival, no white hairs or cryptic markings or long-lasting effects. No proof that he'd survived the cruel machinations of fate, the pain inflicted by friend and foe alike. No evidence of victory, of defeat, of anything that had ever meant </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span> in his life.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Tommy had no scars.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello, hello!</p>
<p>Hope you enjoyed the angst :) 91 might be too many scars but I can imagine c!Tommy counting every single one no matter how small or faint so uhhh yeah let's leave it at that.</p>
<p>I haven't written fanfiction (at least publicly) since 2017/18 and thought I was done with it until the Dream SMP grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me into the pit of ao3 again. This fic is also probably a bit messy since I wrote it between 11pm and 3am, but I don't have the energy to rewrite it into a cleaner format.</p>
<p>I'm actually working on something completely different (SBI Royalty AU, anyone?) but I imagined this fic as a comic originally and didn't have the motivation for that so it got written instead. </p>
<p>Um, I'm not sure what else to write, so I hope you have a good day and drink some water!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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